Smart Clothing

Smart clothes are conquering the market with Berlin as centre of innovation

Berlin is famous not only for its 2 yearly fashion weeks, but as a hotspot for young designers and innovative technology start-ups. Combine these two and it becomes understandable why Berlin attracts entrepreneurs who have specialised in wearables and smart fashion; clothes that have technological features and do more than simply dress people.

A good example of what is happening in Berlin is Lisa Lang (@lilaineurope) and her ElektroCouture brand. She vastly co-operates with technology companies, for example developing smart fabrics. ElectroCouture is the world’s first fashion technology brand focusing on prototyping and developing fashion and wearable technology. The mission, as the brand declares, is to “bring technology into style, as opposed to putting style on top of gadgets”. This also means pieces must be as comfortable or easily washable as any other part of people’s wardrobe. The brand understands itself as a pioneer for the future of self-expression and style.

 

Smart fashion is sustainable fashion

Where traditional fashion brands use colour, ElekroCouture for example uses light. ElektroCouture works together with aspiring young designers. Lisa Wassong, for example, with a background in clothing engineering, started out as designer in residence at the ElektroCouture Studio where she now works as creative technologist and fashiontech designer. “Berlin as fashiontech city is great because you have so many possibilities, you have a great infrastructure – of people and networks,” says Lisa Wassong. “Berlin is ahead of other cities, regarding fashiontech innovations because here are all the great events and the people who are really pushing the industry forwards. I think in future we can expect more innovative fashion.”

 

Using smart textiles

Lilien Stenglein is another young innovator. After founding her label FINESS DESIGN, she brought a special line of yoga clothes to the market using smart textiles. The skin-friendly material of 99 per cent
pure silk has a twist: at chakra energy points, essential in yoga, the fabric radiates warmth back to the body and through that helps to open the chakra. For her, Berlin as a location is important as well. “Because we already have a great ecosystem here with the whole start-up scene, so it is very easy to get in contact with people. It is very vivid here,” she says, also speaking about the FASHIONTECH fair.

Platforms

Large events like the FASHIONTECH in January or the Berlin Fashion Week offer a good platform for companies and creative people not only to present their work, but connect with each other to
establish new co-operations.

More

Read about science and resaerch aspects of Smart Wearables in our catagory "Brain City"

Text by JESSICA HOLZHAUSEN
Credit for all images: (c) UHURA

This article was originally published in the inflight magazine
“Discover Germany, Switzerland and Austria”
www.discovergermany.com |  www.scangroup.co.uk

Update: August 2018